


What Little Girls Are Made Of

by athousandwinds



Series: A Fine and Private Hell [2]
Category: Sweeney Todd (2007)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-04
Updated: 2008-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johanna among the mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Little Girls Are Made Of

Scream.

"Sign of the de'il," came the sob, like the soft rumble of thunder after the lightning. The woman was raking her bitten nails up and down her arms, her high-pitched wailing turning into a whine. She did it for attention, Johanna thought, craning her neck to stare at the tiny window. It was set high up in the wall and was barred like that of her old nursery. Occasionally she could catch a glimpse of white against the sky.

"Mother, mother, help me," sang another woman, tuneless and dreary. Johanna wondered if she meant her own mother, or some nebulous idea of one. It must be nice to think of one's mother as a guardian angel. "Mother Mary, help me." Oh.

"There was not a penny in it, but a ribbon round it"

Some of the women chanted rhymes, strange and nonsensical. Sometimes Johanna recognised the snatches of song, or half-remembered them, because of her nanny. The first one had been kindly, even maternal, and had lulled Johanna to sleep with Mother Goose. One day the Judge had come upon them singing "Lucy Locket". She'd been gone the next morning; Johanna had never known why.

Thirty days hath September, she thought, and fought down the hysterical laughter rising in her throat. A month, he had said. I'll see you again in a month and see if you've earned your lesson. She would know to pack faster this time, learn her way to Fleet Street and Anthony's friends before she set foot outside her prison. How many miles to Babylon? The deceiving world outside, which was so dangerous that her father would keep her locked away from it. One's oyster, expensive and not to everyone's taste after all.

"Slut, slut!" screeched a woman by the door. Johanna looked up, but the woman's gaze wasn't on her at all; it had turned inward. She was an empty vessel, endlessly repeating the hollow echo of other people's words. They went round and round and round until one couldn't think of anything else

What a nasty little strumpet, opening up for the first sailor who takes a gander at you. She couldn't remember who'd said it, him or the beetle beadle but it had stung. Anthony was the first person who'd ever stopped to look, the first person who'd ever given a second thought to the girl in the window. He only wanted her jewellery and her maidenhead, they said. How much is that girl in the window? The Judge had never even hinted at the idea of a "maidenhead" before, though it had been the breath under every word he spoke.

Goosey, goosey gander, whither shall I wander? Upstairs and downstairs, but not in my lady's chamber, no, not further than the garden, where he could hide in the bushes or a tree, like they did in books. Johanna wished, suddenly, that she had made him use the key like she'd meant him to. It might have soured a note in that sweet, ecstatic rendezvous, but she'd have something to show for this besides wild eyes and a gold button torn from a sailor's coat.

But she'd had to ask him to kiss her. He'd been content to gaze at her and blush when she looked back, to babble of Paris and far places. Different from the smooth, practised way the Judge drew her close for a goodnight peck; different again from the beadle. Don't you have a kiss for your old Uncle Bamford? he'd ask. And she'd go to him, move gingerly against his cheek and scuttle away before he could return it. What a scamp of a girl, he'd chuckle, and watch her scurry upstairs.

"Pretty child," crooned one woman. They all melted into each other, these women, one broken mind shared between them all. Johanna allowed the woman to pull on a strand of her hair, her body gritted with unhappy tension. She was safe, she thought, so long as she was separate, so long as her madness was her own and no one else's. She wondered how many of these women thought their pain was their own. Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you. Cry, and you cry alone

There was a clank of metal on metal and the shrill chittering intensified as the women scrambled towards the door. It opened with the groan of worn iron and Johanna alone crawled away from the sound. The others were kicking and biting to get nearer, but she instead curled up into a ball, away from the world. They scratched and booted at her as if she were a stone and not a human being just like them, but their quarrelling hid her from the warden, the guard the doctor.

"Dinner, ladies," came a rough Cockney voice, and Johanna relaxed all at once. The doctor always came in the evening, to pick out a girl for his supper. It was impossible to tell the time, with the nights drawing in. Meals blended into one another, invariable and inevitable; the same dry bread and water every night. A healthy diet, if bland, said the doctor to the Judge. I've noticed rich foods make this Elsie Marley lazy, said the Judge to the doctor. They both laughed.

She snatched up her share and retreated to the corner again. One month, he'd said. Thirty days hath September, April, June and November, but all the rest have thirty-one, except February alone, and it was still autumn. Perhaps Anthony would find her first, and they could sail away to Paris together. Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Johanna swallowed her fear and her giggles all in one. This was no time for tears. Life is but a dream.


End file.
